Jim Vlassis was only 19 when he died in an air collision with another air cadet piloted aircraft at King City, California. My dad had this picture of Jim who was a fellow cadet in training. Apparently there was a farm pilots had to fly over to land at the air base. You came in from the right over it and straightened out for landing. If you missed your landing you circled around and came in from the left.
Cadet Jim Vlassis was piloting a PT-22 #41-20807 coming in for a landing from the right and banking right. Meanwhile Cadet Robert Jesse Warren, age 23, was piloting a PT-22 #41-15290 coming back around from an attempted landing from the left and banking left. They hit at about a thousand feet and their chutes opened at about 100 feet. Both died in the fall on October 19, 1943.
We don't have a picture of Cadet Robert Warren, but both young men died training to fight for their country. A sad loss for their families, friends and for the country.
2 comments:
Thanks.
My dad was an instructor pilot during the war. And, he flew P-38s. He, and another fellow you may have heard of, defended the State of Oklahoma from the Japanese.
They did a good job. Not one enemy ever got through.
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OG, your dad helped young pilots avoid tragic events like this one. Be alert warnings about dangers not readily apparent were among the best gifts instructor pilots gave to their students.
Another event my dad knew of was there were three airplanes flying in the States through what became cold weather. Dad and the pilot in the plane behind him saw that their fuel line temperatures were dropping. So, they warmed the fuel lines. The third pilot didn't notice and crashed. Everyone in the airplane died. Dad was the first to take off and didn't know there were others behind him or he would have radioed the information back.
And yes, there were no attacks, German or Japanese, on Oklahoma! Not even the Japanese bomb balloons got through your dad's brilliant defense.
The greatest generation!
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